Candy from Strangers
by Day of Diana
Summary: The Earth King and Johann M. Faust believe that Moriyama Shiemi is the perfect puppet for killing the Okumura Twins. Now all they have to do is convince her she is the appropriate assassin too. Mephisto/Shiemi/Amaimon. Rape and other violent themes.


_Hi! This is my first Ao No Exorcist story! I hope you guys like it, because I worked really hard on it. :) If you guys have any suggestions or questions about the story, feel free to PM me or review to tell me about them! _

**DISCLAIMER: **_All of the characters in this story do not belong to me and will never belong to me. But I wish they did..._

_Shiemi, Rin and Yukio are all of age. They're all eighteen. _

_I have no idea how old Mephisto and Amaimon actually are... but Mephisto appears to be in his late twenties and Amaimon will use a vessel who looks like he's in his early twenties. _

C++++++++++++++++++F++++++++++++++++++S

Darkness was settling on the small academy town of True Cross. A dense layer of fog swathed the lower half of the mountainous city, while huge, creeping fingers of mist crawled to the upper heights. The freely flowing vapors floated lethargically through the cobbled streets, lightly slipping across windows and under doors. And within the hazy clouds there were miniscule clumps of tiny creatures called saletes.

Thousands of the saletes drifted aimlessly through the air, riding up and down drafts in the convenience of the fog. As a result of a sense of non-purpose more than a deliberate cause, the tiny things ended up in human homes and, through no fault of their own, got caught on the fabric of rugs, curtains, clothes and bedspreads. The little monsters didn't really mind being in human habitation areas, so most of them clung to their new found homes with acceptance.

As darkness gathered at the ridges of the horizon and the citizens of True Cross started to turn in for the night, the saletes were treated with no concern, as they are invisible to the naked eye.

And so, even with hundreds of these little dirty things clinging to every possible object in their homes, the humans went about business as usual. They brushed their teeth and combed their hair, and changed into their nightclothes. The saletes watched everything the humans did with some small amount of interest. There was really little point in observing the bipedal creatures, as these ordinary humans were about as harmful as soft peat; but the saletes, having nothing better to do until they were swept off by the power of gravity again or died, watched and waited.

The reader may be wondering where all of saletes came from. I shall enlighten you. The largest and most well-kept home in all of the town of True Cross was maintained by a certain man called, publicly, Sir Johann M. Faust. Privately, however, he was a daemon of the highest caliber, and had been running the True Cross Academy as the principal for some time. But you already know this much. What you probably did not know was that even daemons produce a sort of waste product. Like humans, daemons are obligate aerobes. Unlike humans, however, who create poisonous carbon dioxide to exhale, daemons breathe out sulfur monoxide. This strange product, which mostly hangs around dead things and trash heaps, sometimes takes on a life of its own.

The reader, at this point, may ask how it is possible to give life to a combination of elements. It all depends on the whim of one particular daemon: King of Earth, Amaimon. He was bored one day and decided to go about zapping dead things in Assiah, around the pacific coast of North America. It just so happens that, being a powerful prince of Gehenna, he managed to somehow introduce a new kind of (mostly) harmless daemon species to the world. His zaps are ostensibly so full of fertile material that he could even elicit a conscious movement from a once-dead squirrel. He's never tried that, of course.

Amaimon himself didn't know that saletes even existed until they started reporting to him on a regular basis, along with all of his other kin, at the bi-annual meetings for the Earth daemons. He was not surprised by this new species, as by then he had thousands of children, and discovered early on that the saletes were quite amazing little creatures. They were sickeningly loyal to him and very useful for spying missions. But they were also quite simple-minded, and often gave him intelligence scrolls with little to no important information on subjects he wanted to know about. Still, he appreciated their sincerity and continued to use them for his own amusement.

On this particular evening, he had sent thousands of them out to do some 'entertaining' research on daemon houseplants, which Amaimon had always suspected of having grown rather fond of the humans and their lifestyles. There had been several delayed meetings with the Monster Houseplant Committee in the past few days, and Amaimon did not want to grant them their usual budget of 50 million rolos (the daemon currency) if they were not going to make life difficult for people. That is, do their jobs.

So he had sent his minions out on that fine, misty evening with one goal in mind. However, he received a very different report than he expected from the leader when it came back the next morning, gloating about what it had seen the previous night.

"What is this?" The king of the earth asked it, rolling his red lolly around in his mouth. "I didn't ask for a report about humans. I asked for a report about the daemon houseplants."

The president of the saletes bowed his head, then started swirling around in the air, seemingly aimlessly.

"I did not want to know if humans are fun. I wanted to know how President Fern was handling the lack of demonic intent his men seem to have been displaying lately." Amaimon slammed the packet of what he deemed worthless papers down on his desk. The salete squeaked and flew around in a buzzing circle once again, trying in vain to avoid his king's swatting hands.

"You have disappointed me again. Where's the-"

A ringing sound pervaded the air. Amaimon let the salete president go for the moment and turned to his desk phone. The caller I.D. showed up as an unknown number.

"Excuse me, but I must take this call. Damn secretaries can't do anything..."

The salete president bowed its head again, squeaked once to say it was leaving Amaimon's office, and that it would wait in the lobby if it was needed further.

Amaimon waved it away. He picked up the phone.

"Moshi moooosh?" he said sweetly into the receiver. If the caller I.D. was being blocked, the number could only be belong to one person.

"Amaimon? You know I hate it when you butcher my Japanese language like that," came a cheery voice from the other end of the line.

"It's not your language. You shouldn't be so upset, my brother," Amaimon answered. He loved picking on his older sibling.

There was a loud gasp. Amaimon rolled his eyes. Mephisto could be so melodramatic.

"Why shouldn't I be upset! Here you are, mocking my language, probably loafing about in a field of fire pansies back in Gehenna while I'm-"

"Mephisto, I'm actually very busy. Tell me why the hell I shouldn't hang up on you right now."

There was a silence. Amaimon waited.

A sigh. "I see you're serious. Very well. I need you to come to Assiah."

Amaimon's eyebrows rose an inch. "Why?"

"There is something I need you to do."

"You need my help?"

There was a pause. "...Not exactly."

"What's the problem, then?" Amaimon chewed up the rest of the lolly and swallowed it, stick and all. He reached for another one from the candy jar on his desk.

"The Okamura Brothers are turning eighteen in a few months. Father has told me he wants to assign them a region."

Amaimon almost choked on his new lollipop. "Wh-what? You can't be serious!"

There was another sigh and Amaimon could imagine Mephisto putting his face in his hand. "It's true. Father thinks that their demonic abilities are good enough to allow them to be inducted into the Circle of Hellion Princes."

Amaimon could feel his body start to shake with anger. "Th-this cannot be allowed! Has Father forgotten that they tried to banish him permanently to Gehenna?"

"I reminded Father of that incident. He laughed it off. It seems he has been charmed by them these past few years. He's grown more fond of them."

Amaimon could barely contain his rage at this point. He threw the phone onto the floor and proceded to smash a few of the decorations around his office. When he was done, he picked up the device again and was surprised to hear his brother's groan of frustration.

"What is the matter now?"

"My coffee isn't pink."

"...What?"

"My secretary usually colors my coffee with this pink paste. It tastes really good, and it's one of my favorite colors."

"Mephisto, this is serious! We cannot let those half-breed brats enter the esteemed society of Princes!"

"You're right, you're right. Damn, hang on."

Amaimon heard Mephisto cover the receiver of the phone and ask his secretary why his coffee wasn't pink. There was a high-pitched noise of disbelief from the secretary; a girl, Amaimon noted. He had an odd feeling that he knew her voice somehow as he listened the secretary and his brother discourse. After a few minutes, Mephisto brought the phone back to his ear.

"Sorry about that. So, I was thinking that we get someone to quietly murder them. But who should do it?"

Amaimon shook his head and said, "Well, you can't do it. You've too high a profile in the human world to commit such a crime. I hear they're hard on murderers there."

"Yes," Mephisto said. "And you can't do it, because Father would probably disown you. And the Okamura Brothers think you're dead... it's better to let them keep thinking that."

"Is that so? Ha," Amaimon huffed. "That fight was years ago. I do not look back on it as fondly as I used to, though."

"Why's that?"

"Because I was a different daemon back then. I took no responsibility for my actions. I was younger, stupider. I shouldn't have let the elder one win against me."

Amaimon heard Mephisto lean back in his chair. "But it'll work to our advantage now. They won't know we're working together, pulling the strings of their deaths. We just need to find the right puppet to hold the ax."

There was a silence while the two brothers considered. Then Amaimon's head snapped up and he brought his fist down on the desk, hard. Mephisto, who had caught the noise, was startled.

"What happened, Amaimon?"

"I've just got it! I've put the voice to the face!"

"What are you-"

Amaimon gripped the phone's handle so tightly his knuckles turned a lighter shade of green. "Your secretary is that girl!"

"Huh?" Mephisto clearly didn't know what his younger brother was talking about.

"That girl! A few years ago, to engage Okamura Rin in combat, I placed his little girlfriend under a trance so that he would fight me for her. She's working as your secretary!"

"Really? Who would've thought?"

"Dumbass! She's an exorcist, right? Don't you know your own students?"

Mephisto sighed. "Yes, but I don't know their connections to each other. I'm surprised that you remember her so well."

Amaimon was astonished at his apparently good memory too. "I don't really remember her, but I thought I recognized her voice."

"Hm. So, you think she'll be a good candidate as their murderer?"

Amaimon thought. "Well... let's see. If she's as important to him now as she was then, he'll trust her not to be plotting anything against him, right? The element of surprise should work there. And I don't know about the other Okamura brother, but the girl should be enough for Rin to deal with."

Mephisto said, "I do seem to recall that Okamura Yukio is also fond of her; she should be able to kill him too. But there's a problem... she won't want to kill them. The three are friends."

"Then I'll put a trance on her, just as I did years ago," Amaimon argued, slumping back in his seat.

"No, I don't think that will work. Trances can be broken if the individual's own feelings are in very sharp contrast to the ideas the trance tries to force on her."

"Do you believe that will be a problem?" Amaimon asked.

"Yes. Miss Moriyama is a very strong girl. I should know; I hand picked her as my secretary and she's done a brilliant job."

"And, as I remember, your criteria for your secretary are rather high-standard..." Amaimon said with a smile.

"Yes. She is well-versed in at least two exorcism disciplines, has three contacts within the Vatican, a sparkling personality and excellent grades. And...her body only elevates my personal opinion of her."

"And I bet it elevates something else too..." Amaimon trailed off, smirking.

"H-hey! You're disgusting. That would be inappropriate. I'm her boss."

"That hasn't stopped you in the past, oh dear brother of mine."

"Shut it. I've a very strong inclination to hang up on you," growled Mephisto.

"Now, now. There's stil the problem of getting her on our side so that she'll kill the Okamura twins."

There was a long silence while both daemons pondered this question. Mephisto spoke first. "I suppose there's nothing to do about it but get to know her. As human convention goes, one must speak to another in order to become friends and influence each other's lives."

Amaimon yawned. "I guess. We must do it carefully though. With subtlety we will slowly turn her on the Okamura brothers. Then when she is completely convinced that they are evil, she will have no choice but to exterminate them. It is what exorcists must do."

"Brilliant. We couldn't have picked a better pawn. When shall I introduce you to her?" Mephisto asked. Amaimon could hear the smirk in his brother's voice.

"I thought you were going to take care of all of this. I have work to do here."

"You can take a short vacation, right? It shouldn't take long to persuade her, then she'll kill them and you can go home and do your job."

Amaimon thought about this. "But why do you need me? As her boss you already have enough authority over her to influence her-"

"Yes, but I'd feel better if you were there too. You know how to manipulate your kin and humans very well."

"And you don't?"

"I'm not as confident in my abilities as I appear, little brother," Mephisto said.

"More like you want me to do your stupid dirty work for you. Come on, running the Earth is very important. I have work-"

"I'm sorry," Mephisto cut Amaimon off, "if you didn't want to get your revenge against those bastards, you should've just said so in the first place."

Amaimon put his head in the hand that wasn't holding the phone. He ran his talons through his hair and thought. It would be nice to finally pay back his half-brothers for everything they'd done to him in the past. He'd actually been wanting to kill Rin for a very long time, ever since the little snot-nosed daemon had first bested him in combat. And now he had his chance.

But he had responsibilities. He had scrolls and scrolls of paperwork, meetings to attend, citizens to preside over. He wasn't the relaxed, fun-loving guy he used to be.

Mephisto coughed at the other end of the line, waiting for Amaimon's answer. It was now, or never. If Amaimon didn't help Mephisto, the purple-haired daemon would just get another powerful prince to do it. But he had given Amaimon the opportunity first, because the Earth King actually held a grudge against the Okamura twins, and was therefore more likely to do this job better than any other prince could. And he could do it. He'd have those twins dead by next week, and it'd be sweet, sweet release.

"I'll do it."

Mephisto sounded cheerier as he said, "Great. I'll send a carriage to pick you up."

"Fuck that shit. I'm flying."

"But-"

"Do you still have that vessel I used last time I was in Assiah?"

"Amaimon, you can't-"

"Do you or don't you?"

A pause, and then Mephisto said slowly, "You can't fly out. That gate's been closed. Part of the immigration laws, you know."

"Oh. Yeah, send me a carriage."

"Will do. See you tomorrow."

"Bye."

Amaimon placed the phone softly back it its receiver. He felt slightly embarrassed that he hadn't known about the closed gate, but that just reinforced the fact that, really, he hadn't had a vacation in a long stood from his desk and walked to the office doors. It was five o'clock. He still had time to turn in that stupid report about the daemon houseplants. There was something niggling in the back of his mind about that.

'Work first, then vacation. That's who I am now. And tomorrow, I will meet Moriyama Shiemi again.'

A smile crossed his face for a second, and then his mind turned back to his job.

C++++++++++++++++++F++++++++++++++++++S

_Ooh, are you guys excited? I'm excited. I've totally gotten into Ao No Exorcist. You guys are in for a wild ride. *wink*wink* See you next chapter!_

_Please review? :)_


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